| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 57 |
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STEWART AND NANCY FORCE from Jacksonville, Florida; their brand new just off the production line boat whose
name was Aythya, which happens to mean a canvas back duck.
We met young Stewart and Nancy in the fall of 1972 up in the Carolinas when they were aboard their new boat as
Jane and I were sailing south on our maiden voyage of our Dursmirg from upper Wisconsin to Florida.
In volume 1 of “Travels of Dursmirg” you will find our friends Stewart and Nancy mentioned several times when we
had numerous interesting encounters and adventures.
These enthusiastic young school teachers were a team of two who had just both begun as high school teachers and
had bought their new fiberglass sailboat at the annual in the water boat show in Annapolis, Maryland.
Not following in someone else’s foot steps, independent minded Stewart and Nancy had developed a unique plan to
get their new sailboat to their home port of Jacksonville, Florida where they, along with their pet monkey, planned to
move aboard and call their new yacht home.
Weekends and holidays this eager young duo would venture north to sail their boat back a little closer to their home
port of Jacksonville.
Stewart and Nancy were having an exciting and adventuresome time taking unique vacations back to back in one of
the most wonderful times of the year to be heading south along with the migrating birds and they managed to stay
ahead of the impending Northers and their icy grip.
This is how we met these square pegged want-to-be- dropouts social misfits that actually planned to be permanent
live-aboard boaters, holding down regular jobs at the same time;
This particular late fall Friday evening Jane and I had docked our Dursmirg at a rickety-tickety little old fish-camp
marina just off the waterway at Wrightsville Beach in order to pick up our mail and also try to cash a check.
We hadn’t had any mail pickup in nearly a month and so we were both eagerly awaiting correspondence from our
family and friends we had left behind the previous August.
Most important of all we were totally out of cash and needed a monetary infusion in order to continue our maiden
voyage south.
The owner of the little bare bones mom and pop marina raised a suspicious eyebrow of questioning doubt when we
told him that we were waiting to pick up money here and would then pay our dockage and buy diesel fuel from him
as soon as we got our funds.
The old weather worn owner of the marina had been around the waterfront most of his life and more than likely had
heard many a wild whopper of a tall tale from every type of flimflammer and scamster that floated by with their
pockets hanging out.
Why should he trust us?
We were soon to meet that very same element in the sunshine state where confidence men and crony politicians
could give rip-off lessons to nearly anybody anywhere on the planet.
Besides Stewart and Nancy Force at the marina aboard their brand new sailboat, a black hulled classic Colin Archer
Norwegian wooden sloop arrived with a young stocky full bearded man named Woody Watron.
Ironically a couple of weeks earlier we had been anchored in the same harbor at Annapolis, Maryland as Woody on
Halloween night where he had paid a surprise visit.
We had drop-in company; in the black of the night alerted by a greeting call Jane and I went out on the back deck to
see a strange and interesting sight. There in a incredibly small dinghy positively overloaded with near zero free-
board were four people accompanied by the largest pumpkin that I had ever seen. Sporting a carved face and
illuminated by a candle from within the pumpkin set the mood for this cool crisp and very dark Halloween night. We
invited everyone aboard and drank tap beer from our keg.
We drank beer and swapped stories of escape and departure, got to know each other and told of our planed
dreams of heading south to a warmer climate where the living was free and easy.
That was our first encounter with Woody Watron and over the years we would cross paths numerous times, always
associated with the sea.
Woody had just escaped from the state of Michigan aboard his lovely exquisitely designed sailing yacht and was
determinedly hell bent on dropping out of everything even remotely civilized.
This social renegade rogue would easily be classed as a bona fide anti-establishmentarian. Part of the cannabis
crowd, Woody set himself at a distance to the rest of the sailing community by being a real loner that was never
close with anyone.
To continue our story of Stewart and Nancy back at the Wrightsville Beach rickety-tickety little old fish-camp marina:
The suggestion that came forth from Stewart and Nancy Force was that we all should venture downtown to a pizza
place they knew that featured a special that would make our visit to Wrightsville Beach memorable.
This was an excellent idea but Jane and I were at the moment positively economically cash strapped.
We went on a diligent hunt of our boat for change and shook out the piggy-bank, turned over the seat cushions,
checked our billfolds and purses plus felt through pants pockets. It was incredible but we managed to actually come
up with just enough cash to go out on the town and it was well worth the effort.
After our scrumptiously memorable pizza we all wound up back on our Dursmirg where our tap beer was much
appreciated and in good supply.
Jane and I had sailed away from Wisconsin, “the beer state” with a 16 gallon barrel of beer in our bilge connected to
a spigot in our galley complete with a CO² cylinder and regulator to top it off and keep it fresh.
Stewart and Nancy were definitely interested in further rendezvous and stayed in touch.
This next winter season Jane and I docked at the Xynides Boatyard up the San Sebastian River and were very hard
to locate but Stewart and Nancy unrelentingly persisted.
We four traveled to the Miami Boat Show together and even slept in their big old van in the parking lot of the Dinner
Key Marina that Stewart knew so well and had in his youth sailed out into Biscayne Bay from.
The Miami Boat Show was a real eye-opener to Jane and I having just come from the nearly land-locked fresh
waters of the western Great Lakes where nautical equipment and supplies were only geared to the huge grain and
iron ore carriers and yachts were nearly non-existent.
Stewart and Nancy also knew their way around the Miami area and gave us a superlative fact filled tour that
enlightened us to a different prospective of the region that tourists do not get to see.
Stewart and Nancy had invited Jane and I up to Jacksonville for a visit and a sociable weekend get-together so we
decided to take them up on their offer and incorporate the trip into a bicycle outing.
In late winter of that year Jane and I rode our bicycles the 55 miles up the quiet and seldom used highway A1A along
the coast with its wind driven sand dunes to Mayport, Florida at the St. John’s River.
Nowadays that bicycle trip seems like an impossibility because of all the terrible traffic, but back then in the early
1970s we literally had the road to ourselves and any traffic that did pass could be heard coming from miles away.
The St. Augustine area was nearly undeveloped at the time and Jane and I had a rare experience silently ghosting
along the seashore and sand dunes accompanied by huge formations of pelicans deftly maneuvering the coastal
wind currents.
Heading north after Valano Beach along the desolate sand dunes and palmetto scrub we didn’t spot a single beach
front dwelling until we reached Palm Valley, and then hardly any signs of civilization again until we reached the posh
and prestigious Sawgrass Golf and Country Club.
At Jacksonville Beach we went down to the Mayport ferry boat, crossed the St. Johns River by ferry and then
followed the north side of the river all the way up into Jacksonville.
Finding any place to eat lunch was a problem out in this sparse wild scrub country and we had to take the only
establishment along this route.
We spotted a small fish camp well after our usual noontime eating hour some distance off the road and got a
sustaining sandwich and something to drink.
If we would have had any inkling of what was in store for us next I doubt that we would have ventured out and made
this trip.
The sky blackened, the wind piped up and then the blustery weather began to scream. Fortunately for us the gale
force wind was at our backs as we were headed into Jacksonville doing more than 30 MPH without even
pumping…now that was one hell of a bicycle ride! We covered a number of miles in a few minutes.
Just as we entered Jacksonville an ice rain came pelting down in an icy deluge that was as intense as we had ever
witnessed. We not only got wet, we were soaked straight through to the bone. You just can’t get any wetter than that.
I always used to declare that if you don’t like to get wet you shouldn’t go bicycling, go out sailing or do any plumbing.
It so happens that I have done all three of the above mentioned.
Before this storm was over it turned out that this afternoon seven inches of rain fell down in less than one hour…and
still the wind swept us along at a recklessly high speed that was dangerous especially when you consider that our
caliper brakes on our bicycles were literally useless when wet.
We arrived at Stewart and Nancy’s boat to find a note for us; they had been unexpectedly called out of town for an
emergency and we should just make ourselves at home.
We had some reservations about spending the night aboard their boat with them because they had a very
troublesome pet. The pet was a mischievous monkey and it had luckily left town with Stewart and Nancy…we were
safe.
As much as we wanted to visit with Stewart and Nancy we were honestly relieved that we wouldn’t be sharing the
same quarters with a roguish ill-behaved creature that could turn carnivorous at any time.
Stewart and Nancy were in some respects social misfits but they were as close to being straight arrows as any of the
boating community around the St. Augustine area back in those traumatic times for America with the Vietnam War
and two Arab oil embargos.
They had steady jobs and though they persistently over the years as live-a-board boaters they kept trading up their
vessels to bigger and bigger yachts loaded with more and more creature comfort paraphernalia.
These two certainly got full enjoyment out of their boat over the years and made many a weekend jaunt down to St.
Augustine, always anchoring out with all of the rest of the other social misfits.
They often times invited us over to their latest yacht to reminisce about the good old days of sail and show us their
latest nautical gadgets.
For vacations they would be off to wherever the wind would blow them free of the encumbrances of docks and shore
side dependence of marina conveniences. Stewart and Nancy were enjoying the best of both possible worlds.
Who could have a better self fulfilling dream than that?
next chapter
name was Aythya, which happens to mean a canvas back duck.
We met young Stewart and Nancy in the fall of 1972 up in the Carolinas when they were aboard their new boat as
Jane and I were sailing south on our maiden voyage of our Dursmirg from upper Wisconsin to Florida.
In volume 1 of “Travels of Dursmirg” you will find our friends Stewart and Nancy mentioned several times when we
had numerous interesting encounters and adventures.
These enthusiastic young school teachers were a team of two who had just both begun as high school teachers and
had bought their new fiberglass sailboat at the annual in the water boat show in Annapolis, Maryland.
Not following in someone else’s foot steps, independent minded Stewart and Nancy had developed a unique plan to
get their new sailboat to their home port of Jacksonville, Florida where they, along with their pet monkey, planned to
move aboard and call their new yacht home.
Weekends and holidays this eager young duo would venture north to sail their boat back a little closer to their home
port of Jacksonville.
Stewart and Nancy were having an exciting and adventuresome time taking unique vacations back to back in one of
the most wonderful times of the year to be heading south along with the migrating birds and they managed to stay
ahead of the impending Northers and their icy grip.
This is how we met these square pegged want-to-be- dropouts social misfits that actually planned to be permanent
live-aboard boaters, holding down regular jobs at the same time;
This particular late fall Friday evening Jane and I had docked our Dursmirg at a rickety-tickety little old fish-camp
marina just off the waterway at Wrightsville Beach in order to pick up our mail and also try to cash a check.
We hadn’t had any mail pickup in nearly a month and so we were both eagerly awaiting correspondence from our
family and friends we had left behind the previous August.
Most important of all we were totally out of cash and needed a monetary infusion in order to continue our maiden
voyage south.
The owner of the little bare bones mom and pop marina raised a suspicious eyebrow of questioning doubt when we
told him that we were waiting to pick up money here and would then pay our dockage and buy diesel fuel from him
as soon as we got our funds.
The old weather worn owner of the marina had been around the waterfront most of his life and more than likely had
heard many a wild whopper of a tall tale from every type of flimflammer and scamster that floated by with their
pockets hanging out.
Why should he trust us?
We were soon to meet that very same element in the sunshine state where confidence men and crony politicians
could give rip-off lessons to nearly anybody anywhere on the planet.
Besides Stewart and Nancy Force at the marina aboard their brand new sailboat, a black hulled classic Colin Archer
Norwegian wooden sloop arrived with a young stocky full bearded man named Woody Watron.
Ironically a couple of weeks earlier we had been anchored in the same harbor at Annapolis, Maryland as Woody on
Halloween night where he had paid a surprise visit.
We had drop-in company; in the black of the night alerted by a greeting call Jane and I went out on the back deck to
see a strange and interesting sight. There in a incredibly small dinghy positively overloaded with near zero free-
board were four people accompanied by the largest pumpkin that I had ever seen. Sporting a carved face and
illuminated by a candle from within the pumpkin set the mood for this cool crisp and very dark Halloween night. We
invited everyone aboard and drank tap beer from our keg.
We drank beer and swapped stories of escape and departure, got to know each other and told of our planed
dreams of heading south to a warmer climate where the living was free and easy.
That was our first encounter with Woody Watron and over the years we would cross paths numerous times, always
associated with the sea.
Woody had just escaped from the state of Michigan aboard his lovely exquisitely designed sailing yacht and was
determinedly hell bent on dropping out of everything even remotely civilized.
This social renegade rogue would easily be classed as a bona fide anti-establishmentarian. Part of the cannabis
crowd, Woody set himself at a distance to the rest of the sailing community by being a real loner that was never
close with anyone.
To continue our story of Stewart and Nancy back at the Wrightsville Beach rickety-tickety little old fish-camp marina:
The suggestion that came forth from Stewart and Nancy Force was that we all should venture downtown to a pizza
place they knew that featured a special that would make our visit to Wrightsville Beach memorable.
This was an excellent idea but Jane and I were at the moment positively economically cash strapped.
We went on a diligent hunt of our boat for change and shook out the piggy-bank, turned over the seat cushions,
checked our billfolds and purses plus felt through pants pockets. It was incredible but we managed to actually come
up with just enough cash to go out on the town and it was well worth the effort.
After our scrumptiously memorable pizza we all wound up back on our Dursmirg where our tap beer was much
appreciated and in good supply.
Jane and I had sailed away from Wisconsin, “the beer state” with a 16 gallon barrel of beer in our bilge connected to
a spigot in our galley complete with a CO² cylinder and regulator to top it off and keep it fresh.
Stewart and Nancy were definitely interested in further rendezvous and stayed in touch.
This next winter season Jane and I docked at the Xynides Boatyard up the San Sebastian River and were very hard
to locate but Stewart and Nancy unrelentingly persisted.
We four traveled to the Miami Boat Show together and even slept in their big old van in the parking lot of the Dinner
Key Marina that Stewart knew so well and had in his youth sailed out into Biscayne Bay from.
The Miami Boat Show was a real eye-opener to Jane and I having just come from the nearly land-locked fresh
waters of the western Great Lakes where nautical equipment and supplies were only geared to the huge grain and
iron ore carriers and yachts were nearly non-existent.
Stewart and Nancy also knew their way around the Miami area and gave us a superlative fact filled tour that
enlightened us to a different prospective of the region that tourists do not get to see.
Stewart and Nancy had invited Jane and I up to Jacksonville for a visit and a sociable weekend get-together so we
decided to take them up on their offer and incorporate the trip into a bicycle outing.
In late winter of that year Jane and I rode our bicycles the 55 miles up the quiet and seldom used highway A1A along
the coast with its wind driven sand dunes to Mayport, Florida at the St. John’s River.
Nowadays that bicycle trip seems like an impossibility because of all the terrible traffic, but back then in the early
1970s we literally had the road to ourselves and any traffic that did pass could be heard coming from miles away.
The St. Augustine area was nearly undeveloped at the time and Jane and I had a rare experience silently ghosting
along the seashore and sand dunes accompanied by huge formations of pelicans deftly maneuvering the coastal
wind currents.
Heading north after Valano Beach along the desolate sand dunes and palmetto scrub we didn’t spot a single beach
front dwelling until we reached Palm Valley, and then hardly any signs of civilization again until we reached the posh
and prestigious Sawgrass Golf and Country Club.
At Jacksonville Beach we went down to the Mayport ferry boat, crossed the St. Johns River by ferry and then
followed the north side of the river all the way up into Jacksonville.
Finding any place to eat lunch was a problem out in this sparse wild scrub country and we had to take the only
establishment along this route.
We spotted a small fish camp well after our usual noontime eating hour some distance off the road and got a
sustaining sandwich and something to drink.
If we would have had any inkling of what was in store for us next I doubt that we would have ventured out and made
this trip.
The sky blackened, the wind piped up and then the blustery weather began to scream. Fortunately for us the gale
force wind was at our backs as we were headed into Jacksonville doing more than 30 MPH without even
pumping…now that was one hell of a bicycle ride! We covered a number of miles in a few minutes.
Just as we entered Jacksonville an ice rain came pelting down in an icy deluge that was as intense as we had ever
witnessed. We not only got wet, we were soaked straight through to the bone. You just can’t get any wetter than that.
I always used to declare that if you don’t like to get wet you shouldn’t go bicycling, go out sailing or do any plumbing.
It so happens that I have done all three of the above mentioned.
Before this storm was over it turned out that this afternoon seven inches of rain fell down in less than one hour…and
still the wind swept us along at a recklessly high speed that was dangerous especially when you consider that our
caliper brakes on our bicycles were literally useless when wet.
We arrived at Stewart and Nancy’s boat to find a note for us; they had been unexpectedly called out of town for an
emergency and we should just make ourselves at home.
We had some reservations about spending the night aboard their boat with them because they had a very
troublesome pet. The pet was a mischievous monkey and it had luckily left town with Stewart and Nancy…we were
safe.
As much as we wanted to visit with Stewart and Nancy we were honestly relieved that we wouldn’t be sharing the
same quarters with a roguish ill-behaved creature that could turn carnivorous at any time.
Stewart and Nancy were in some respects social misfits but they were as close to being straight arrows as any of the
boating community around the St. Augustine area back in those traumatic times for America with the Vietnam War
and two Arab oil embargos.
They had steady jobs and though they persistently over the years as live-a-board boaters they kept trading up their
vessels to bigger and bigger yachts loaded with more and more creature comfort paraphernalia.
These two certainly got full enjoyment out of their boat over the years and made many a weekend jaunt down to St.
Augustine, always anchoring out with all of the rest of the other social misfits.
They often times invited us over to their latest yacht to reminisce about the good old days of sail and show us their
latest nautical gadgets.
For vacations they would be off to wherever the wind would blow them free of the encumbrances of docks and shore
side dependence of marina conveniences. Stewart and Nancy were enjoying the best of both possible worlds.
Who could have a better self fulfilling dream than that?
next chapter